Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Tanking in Karazhan

I respecced to 20/41/0 today. Not a full tanking build, but something that should allow me to heal decently and act as an off-tank if we need an extra tank.

Well, it turned out that we only had one warrior in the raid tonight, so I got to off-tank! It was a lot of fun. I off-tanked trash until we got to the Maiden, where I swapped into healing gear and healed that fight.

Next we went to Moroes. Moroes is an interesting fight. One of the things about Moroes is that he will gouge the tank and go after the person with the second-highest threat. So we have two tanks building threat on Moroes.

Because a lot of paladin threat is based on Holy Shield, we decided to make me the main tank for this fight, and the warrior would build secondary threat and offtank the adds.

So I got to main-tank Moroes!

I did pretty well, I think, especially considering my gear level (go, go 467 defense!). I held Moroes, and lasted until he Enraged, at which point he promptly killed me. But the warrior held him for the rest of the fight, and the raid killed him.

It was a really good raid. I healed, melee'd, off-tanked trash, and even main-tanked a boss. Hopefully I wasn't too much of a stress for the healers.

As well, this was probably the first time one of our guild paladins has really tanked anything, and I think the warrior officer was happy with how I did. Hopefully, I'll be used as an off-tank in future fights. Either way, it's one more option for our raid, and more options are always good.

Now I just have to figure out how to get to 490 defense. I'm actually collecting 3 sets of gear at this point, and it gets quite difficult when you are presented with a choice of one really good tanking item, or one really good healing item.

I also need to get better at watching my health and using trinkets and consumables appropriately.

Welcome to the 20/41/0 brotherhood, Coriel. That's my spec as well. I actually made all the same talent choices as you save 3 points - the 3 points in Precision you have are split up into Guardian's Favor and Avenger's Shield. If I may ask, why'd you skip Avenger's Shield?

As for gear, feel free to armory me as well. I've put together a gear set of 493 defense and over 10k health without sacrificing too much in the intellect, mana/5, or spell damage department, and without any raid epics or heroic gear. My avoidance lacks a little, but it's workable and customizable. I highly recommend getting 4/5 Righteous set and Timewarden's Leggings.

I'm not too sure. I liked Avenger's Shield, but I rarely used it. Solo play it costs too much mana, and in pickup groups I had an incredibly hard time getting the concept of "Let me pull with Avenger's Shield and you can crowd control after" across. And in Kara or a guild group, someone else pulling isn't that big a deal, they'll give me space to get aggro.

Whereas Precision is always on, it's an extra 3% damage for no mana, more and smoother threat generation, and more likely to refresh judgments when it matters.

Maybe it's just personal taste, I tend to prefer the passive, always-on boosts to new abilities that I won't use that often. For example, I like Holy Shield because I always use it, it's part of my routine for every fight (when I'm solo'ing).

As well, I couldn't spare the points from Holy. If I was going full-tank with something like 0/47/14 or so, I'd definately grab it.

Heh, it just occurred to me that I quested for an hour or so, and didn't trigger Avenging Wrath once.

Wow, great job! I've done a lot of reading about Paladin roles in groups lately on the forums, etc, and it's really cool that 1) you can swap your role back and forth as required like that and 2) that your guild is supportive of you being something other than a healadin.

Great reading, I can't imagine I'll be writing about Karazhan for another year yet ;)

Having being 13/43/5 since pre-TBC (the dreaded patch), I've been Pallytanking for a good few months now, and I can see both the advantages and disadvantages of it.

The BIG, and the MAIN reason to use a Paladin Tank over a Warrior tank is AoE aggro. For example, take the mobs in the Ballroom in Karazhan. Warrior pulls and tries to tank, you invariably get leaks in the AoE and people die. Give a Paladin tank with decent spell damage the reigns and no-one dies. We've also got a lot of mitigation, and once you reach that magic defence number, no more chance to be crit by level 73's, which is awesome.

But, I find warriors have a lot more mitigation and a lot more "survivrability" tanking than we do. Yes, like you, my bretheren, I long to main tank such things as Moroes, The Curator etc (Would say Ragnoros and Onyxia, but I have since fufilled those dreams :D), but it's just not realistic. And since our aggro is dependant on a finite pool of mana, rage is still the #1 tanking "mana pool" of choice.

But yeah, as long as you remember the balance of SPELL DAMAGE, STAMINA, INTELLECT and DEFENCE (mana/5 too), all is good.

I think that you'll like Avenger's Shield, Coriel. When used correctly it is a great boon to initial aggro, an effective tool for 5-mans, and despite the mana cost and 3 target tendency it can be used as a pull tool when properly aimed (if the targets are standing in a line, aim for one end and it will chain to the closest 2).

I've actually been considering doing the same thing and putting 2/3 into Precision from Guardian's Favor. I haven't been using my Blessing of Protection all that often - I only think vs Moroes I'd miss the reduced cooldown for removing garrotes.

I think it'd be a very good idea to take 1 point from Precision for Avenger's Shield. 1% hit is truly not that big of a deal, and Avenger's Shield (in my humble yet largely irrelevant opinion) is an excellent tool, despite its kinks and difficulties (like the dead zone at short range and tendency to bounce to things you don't want it to in some situations).

Paladins are becoming nearly as good hybrid as us druids. The sad thing with pally / druid tanking, is that warriors are getting pissed of. Not in raid but in normal instances warriors are not as wanted as a feral druid or even a prot pally.

Good Job, is nice to read experiences from other palis. Just one concern, i don't think we must be former hybrids on spec tree. I already took the best from every spec for build my palli tank 10/47/4 and got two set of gear, one for pvp and one for tanking. I never though deal so much dmg as prot spec, but with my actual configuration, wearing spell dmg with a prot spec, i am so happy, is really good stay on first line of any battle, deal a lot of dmg and survive. The only problem with my conf. is i am a really bad healer, but is not a problem if u talk about that with ur group or raid before, and that way they are not going to expect u heal others.

As a priest, i LOVE warriors tanking , they dont get the dmg the other classes got, they got last stand, they got -30% spell dmg incoming, they got bloody shield blocks/disarms and well , its a bloody tanking class.

I dont have a problem with hybrids like pallies/druids, as long as its not a serious raid, eg ssc,mag's lair etc. For fun raiding schemas like Heroics, kara etc warriors still pwn hard, but if u dont got other option, druids/pallies will do the job.

I am trying to lvl a pallie now, after having 70'ed my priest and my hunter, so i really find it kewl that i can do something more than spam heals and blessings.Keep up the topic!

im 5/46/10 atm, thats the spec u want to go with if ur tanking bosses in endgame, the int aint that importan anyomore, as we got the spiritual attunement from tbc. U cant go oom while fighting endgame( harder then kara) because if u are topped at health all the time, u will have received mana back, enough to keep u going the whole fight. And while tanking u dont use that many spells really, u just have to spam the few u have. dont use SoR for instance, cause ur going with a 1h, and SoV will give u more threath in the long run. If u go oom, the mobs aint raping u good enough to let the healers heal u, and if the healers are good, they will heal u when ur at 75% HP instead og 95% hp, then u wont receive any mana at all :p

You should check my gear as well. I am Full Prot and am off healer on maiden if they need me as well as dispeller there.My avoidance is very high at the moment (557 defense).http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Darkspear&n=Killbillfast